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- It is a word I made up, but it does basically means "degree of reliability."

Irrelevant. There is no reliability in the inference that forms the core of your proof, no matter how many other examples of other cases you can think of where an inference would be reliable. You make up words all the time to hide the disingenuous parts of your argument. The way you use "targetness" indicates you intend it to mean the portion of your inference that you're begging, for which you know you have no proof other than navel-gazing. Simply giving a new name to question-begging doesn't make it not beg the question.

Quote:

A claimed target doesn't need to be pre-specified...

Yes, it does, for the same reason that you can't choose your lottery numbers after the drawing or invent new winning poker hands after the cards have been dealt. For the past few weeks your argument has been nothing more sophisticated than trying to claim the Texas sharpshooter fallacy isn't really a fallacy. I suspect this is why you've ignored all the requests for you to explain it in your own words. I don't think you understand it.

Quote:

...in order for us to estimate its probability of actually being the target.

"Estimate" is not a synonym for "numbers pulled out of one's behind." You've cited a few examples where, given the totality of information and not just the successful outcome of the selection, one could rationally infer intent. Your proof for immortality pretends to be one of those, when all it does it infer the intent (and thereby the significance of the outcome) from the outcome alone.

Perhaps now instead of telling irrelevant stories, you can supply some actual proof for the claim that your self-awareness was properly preselected.

Quote:

There are different aspects of the post-specified target that relate to the likelihood of it being the real target.

No, because you simply assess the significance of those aspects after the target has been chosen. You post-identify them as significant, which begs the question.

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

LL,
- I do currently accept that in order for my current existence to be a legitimate target -- and the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, properly fill the role of P(E|H) in the Bayesian formula -- I need to be somehow "set apart from the crowd" (or something similar). I have offered my argument for that case previously, but can't seem to find it now...
- Anyway, here's my rough explanation.
- Just to sort of "set the stage," we all take our current existence totally for granted, when it really should be the very last thing we take for granted...
- Even if I am just a process, and not a "thing1." I am still the only "thing2" that I know exists. Everything else (1&2) could just be my imagination.
- If I didn't currently exist, there might as well be nothing -- and, if I never existed, there might as well never be anything.
- That makes me special!
- I assume that you have the same credentials, and are special also.
- That ought to get us started...

Jabba, if someone else existed in your place, and presented this argument that they are "special", would the argument be valid?

__________________"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky

I wrote that one cannot reliably infer the intent from the outcome alone. Jabba wants to parlay that into justification for his (wrong) argument that there would exist a spectrum of reliability for such an inference. He's invented a new word to hide that equivocation -- "targetness." Of course reliability exists on a spectrum. However, inference from outcome alone lies at the "unreliable" end of that spectrum. That's why I wrote what I wrote....

Jay,
- I explained why the deer very likely was the target even though it had not been pre-specified.
- My inference, in this case, was not based upon outcome alone however -- my inference included the probability of other deer being close enough to be hit instead.
- A friend says, "Watch this." and from 100 yards away, fires his M-14 10 times in the direction of a barn. Upon walking up to the barn, you find that the diameter of his shot group was no more than one foot across.
- So sure, outcome alone can mean nothing about what the target was -- however, other background information can tilt the scale. And then, certain aspects of the outcome alone can also tilt the scale.

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

Jay,
- I explained why the deer very likely was the target even though it had not been pre-specified.
- My inference, in this case, was not based upon outcome alone however -- my inference included the probability of other deer being close enough to be hit instead.
- A friend says, "Watch this." and from 100 yards away, fires his M-14 10 times in the direction of a barn. Upon walking up to the barn, you find that the diameter of his shot group was no more than one foot across.
- So sure, outcome alone can mean nothing about what the target was -- however, other background information can tilt the scale. And then, certain aspects of the outcome alone can also tilt the scale.

So what background information are you using here? If your friend had said, "Watch this!" and promptly shot himself in the leg, would you consider that to have been his goal all along?

__________________"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon

Jay,
- I explained why the deer very likely was the target even though it had not been pre-specified.
- My inference, in this case, was not based upon outcome alone however -- my inference included the probability of other deer being close enough to be hit instead.
- A friend says, "Watch this." and from 100 yards away, fires his M-14 10 times in the direction of a barn. Upon walking up to the barn, you find that the diameter of his shot group was no more than one foot across.
- So sure, outcome alone can mean nothing about what the target was -- however, other background information can tilt the scale. And then, certain aspects of the outcome alone can also tilt the scale.

<snip> You are now claiming that had I driven down a given highway, not only was my hitting a deer on said highway planned, I must have intentionally planned to hit a deer and timed my journey to be sure of it. Furthermore, I had a specific individual deer in mind and rearranged my trip just to be sure that both me and this specific individual deer crossed paths at precisely the same time?

Are you serious?

Edited by Loss Leader:

Edited mild language. Moderated thread.

__________________Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive?

I explained why the deer very likely was the target even though it had not been pre-specified.

Yes, and I explained why that doesn't match your proof for immortality. "Pre-specification" is a straw man. In fact evidence was apparent that informed the conclusion. That evidence points to conditions that existed before the shot was taken -- the identity of the shooter as a farmer. e.g. It doesn't point to conditions suddenly granted significance by the outcome.

Quote:

My inference, in this case, was not based upon outcome alone

Correct, which is why it's an unsuitable analogy to your proof. In your proof you do base your inference upon outcome alone. You were asked to cite any additional evidence, such as in your deer-hunting analogy, that your proof provides. You could not; you simply asked us to marvel at what a special snowflake you thought you were. Therefore you are inferring your result from outcome alone, which is unreliable. You simply named as the intended target whatever was hit.

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however -- my inference included the probability of other deer being close enough to be hit instead.

No, it didn't. This is the first we've heard of other deer. Ad hoc revision.

Quote:

A friend says, "Watch this."...

Which, taken together, is prior information that he is likely going to attempt some noteworthy feat. That information was conveyed before the data were sampled, but without specification we do not know what that feat was meant to be. How do you know his intent was not to make a smiley-face with the bullet holes, and that he failed? How do you know he wasn't trying to shoot a long line of evenly-spaced holes? As usual, you're observing what you think the data mean after the fact and assuming that was the intent.

You really need to get away from these increasingly irrelevant analogies and start talking about your proof, which commits the Texas sharpshooter fallacy without any doubt whatsoever. You still haven't told us what you think that fallacy is, which indicates to me you really don't understand it. And because you don't understand it, you keep committing it and begging your critics to let it slide. That will never happen.

Quote:

So sure, outcome alone can mean nothing about what the target was -- however, other background information can tilt the scale.

Your proof for immortality provides nothing else to tilt the scale. It is inferred from outcome alone. Further, this prong of your proof is where you attempt to rule that mataerialism is very improbable -- reckoning P(E|H). Therefore all the inferences have to be drawn solely on what materialism provides. Materialism specifically rejects what you're trying to tack onto it. There is no notion whatsoever of "pre-selection" or "pre-specification." This is one of the other fatal flaws you were asked to address, but yet haven't.

Quote:

And then, certain aspects of the outcome alone can also tilt the scale.

In your most recent example, the "certain aspects" were simply what you assumed about the outcome. It was not data, but assumption. You look at the close shot grouping and assumed that was the shooter's intent. Similarly your proof for immortality simply observes your presence and assumes there was something pre-ordained about it. You provide no evidence for such pre-ordination and sweep under the rug that the regime in which you have to reckon that explicitly rejects it.

Please at least look up what "begging the question" means before you respond further. And also, please describe the Texas sharpshooter fallacy in your own words. I grow tired of asking.

Jay,
- I explained why the deer very likely was the target even though it had not been pre-specified.
- My inference, in this case, was not based upon outcome alone however -- my inference included the probability of other deer being close enough to be hit instead.
- A friend says, "Watch this." and from 100 yards away, fires his M-14 10 times in the direction of a barn. Upon walking up to the barn, you find that the diameter of his shot group was no more than one foot across.
- So sure, outcome alone can mean nothing about what the target was -- however, other background information can tilt the scale. And then, certain aspects of the outcome alone can also tilt the scale.

None of which is analogous to your existence. Your existence is analogous to a single bullet hole on an infinitely large barn wall. There is no background information to tilt the scale.

__________________"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett

Just to clarify, Jabba, is the business with the farmer and the deer an attempt to demonstrate that you are special or an attempt to describe the Texas sharpshooter fallacy in your own words?

Yes, I'd like to know that, too, because it seems to me that Jabba is arguing against his own case right now:

The argument used to be that each of us is highly improbable.

But now we have the deer-shooting farmer. Now obviously, if this farmer (why farmer, btw?) is often shooting deer, then when he comes back from the hunt and has shot a deer, we can not only assume that he aimed for a deer, but that he aimed for that particular deer.

- But so what? That makes the hit immensely more probable than if he just fired his gun randomly and happened to hit the deer. So why is this an argument for any of us being improbable? Surely, when our parents had sex, they would be expected to conceive a human baby (and not e.g. a deer).

Hans

__________________If you love life, you must accept the traces it leaves.

LL,
- I do currently accept that in order for my current existence to be a legitimate target -- and the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, properly fill the role of P(E|H) in the Bayesian formula -- I need to be somehow "set apart from the crowd" (or something similar). I have offered my argument for that case previously, but can't seem to find it now...
- Anyway, here's my rough explanation.
- Just to sort of "set the stage," we all take our current existence totally for granted, when it really should be the very last thing we take for granted...
- Even if I am just a process, and not a "thing1." I am still the only "thing2" that I know exists. Everything else (1&2) could just be my imagination.
- If I didn't currently exist, there might as well be nothing -- and, if I never existed, there might as well never be anything.
- That makes me special!
- I assume that you have the same credentials, and are special also.
- That ought to get us started...

Originally Posted by godless dave

In what way does that make you special?

Dave,
- That is the question!

- I think that the basic answer is that I'm the only self that I know does exist, the rest of you guys are hearsay. That sets me apart, and makes me special. I think it's the same claim that Toon makes.
- Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity, that's one hell of a coincident and one hell of an important (to me) coincident.
- If I could convince you that the appropriate denominator in the likelihood element really is infinity, would that help? Hypothetically?

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

- I think that the basic answer is that I'm the only self that I know does exist, the rest of you guys are hearsay. That sets me apart, and makes me special. I think it's the same claim that Toon makes.
- Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity, that's one hell of a coincident and one hell of an important (to me) coincident.
- If I could convince you that the appropriate denominator in the likelihood element really is infinity, would that help? Hypothetically?

Welcome to solipsism, the most pointless dead end in philosophy.

__________________"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon

I think that the basic answer is that I'm the only self that I know does exist, the rest of you guys are hearsay.

Desperate solipsism. And fairly philosophically unhelpful to your claim. If you're the only one who truly exists, then the universe exists solely for you. It's hard to argue from that point that you were so lucky to have won a place in such a universe. If the only person who enters the raffle is you, you win. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Quote:

That sets me apart, and makes me special.

No, you've ventured too far afield. You have to have been made special (i.e., designated as the desired target) before you existed, otherwise you just keep committing the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. The solipsist approach doesn't allow that, because you have to exist first in order to engage in the solipsism that you say makes you special. This is what jt512 was trying to tell you several times.

Quote:

I think it's the same claim that Toon makes.

You're both wrong, for the same reasons.

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Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity...

...which it isn't -- yet another one of those pesky fatal flaws you refuse to look at.

Quote:

If I could convince you that the appropriate denominator in the likelihood element really is infinity, would that help?

No, because you are simply wrong about that. See the list of fatal flaws in your argument for the details of why that part of your argument is pseudo-mathematical gibberish.

Quote:

Hypothetically?

Don't grovel for agreement. Instead, address the reasons for disagreement. You were given a list, which you ignored.

- I think that the basic answer is that I'm the only self that I know does exist, the rest of you guys are hearsay. That sets me apart, and makes me special.

Again, how does that make you special? What does it set you apart from? Those things are only true from your perspective, and your perspective only exists after you already exist. Before you existed there was no you to have a perspective.

Originally Posted by Jabba

- Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity, that's one hell of a coincident and one hell of an important (to me) coincident.

How can one event be a coincidence? For a coincidence you need at least two events.

Originally Posted by Jabba

- If I could convince you that the appropriate denominator in the likelihood element really is infinity, would that help? Hypothetically?

Any fraction with infinity as the denominator is equivalent to zero so if you could do that you wouldn't have to bother with any of the Bayesian stuff at all because the likelihood would be zero. But you're no closer to doing that than you were five years ago.

__________________"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." - aggle-rithm

How can one event be a coincidence? For a coincidence you need at least two events.

Ah, but that's the beauty of it -- Jabba's existence is not a coincidence; it's a coincident. He invented another word - it's like targetness or infinity as a denominator.

Originally Posted by Jabba

- Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity, that's one hell of a coincident and one hell of an important (to me) coincident.

A novel new use of an adjective as a noun. It's more argument by semantics, and its use as effectiveTM as ever!

Hey Jabba, check this out!

Originally Posted by dictionary.com

coincident
[koh-in-si-duh nt]
..adjective
1.
happening at the same time.
2.
coinciding; occupying the same place or position.
3.
exactly corresponding.
4.
in exact agreement (usually followed by with).

LL,
- I do currently accept that in order for my current existence to be a legitimate target -- and the likelihood of my current existence, given OOFLam, properly fill the role of P(E|H) in the Bayesian formula -- I need to be somehow "set apart from the crowd" (or something similar). I have offered my argument for that case previously, but can't seem to find it now...
- Anyway, here's my rough explanation.
- Just to sort of "set the stage," we all take our current existence totally for granted, when it really should be the very last thing we take for granted...
- Even if I am just a process, and not a "thing1." I am still the only "thing2" that I know exists. Everything else (1&2) could just be my imagination.
- If I didn't currently exist, there might as well be nothing -- and, if I never existed, there might as well never be anything.
- That makes me special!
- I assume that you have the same credentials, and are special also.
- That ought to get us started...

Originally Posted by godless dave

In what way does that make you special?

Originally Posted by Jabba

Dave,
- That is the question!

- I think that the basic answer is that I'm the only self that I know does exist, the rest of you guys are hearsay. That sets me apart, and makes me special. I think it's the same claim that Toon makes.
- Then, if the likelihood of my current existence -- given OOFLam -- is really some finite number over infinity, that's one hell of a coincident and one hell of an important (to me) coincident.- If I could convince you that the appropriate denominator in the likelihood element really is infinity, would that help? Hypothetically?

Originally Posted by godless dave

Again, how does that make you special? What does it set you apart from? Those things are only true from your perspective, and your perspective only exists after you already exist. Before you existed there was no you to have a perspective.

How can one event be a coincidence? For a coincidence you need at least two events.

Any fraction with infinity as the denominator is equivalent to zero so if you could do that you wouldn't have to bother with any of the Bayesian stuff at all because the likelihood would be zero. But you're no closer to doing that than you were five years ago.

Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

Ah, but that's the beauty of it -- Jabba's existence is not a coincidence; it's a coincident. He invented another word - it's like targetness or infinity as a denominator.

A novel new use of an adjective as a noun. It's more argument by semantics, and its use as effectiveTM as ever!

Hey Jabba, check this out!

Carlitos,
- I didn't realize there was a difference... Learned something new.

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

No, because history has shown that this just leads you to wallowing in irrelevant minutia such that you never confront the major problems in your proof all at once. You were given a list of fatal flaws in your proof. You acknowledged its existence but did not address it. Instead, you said that if you could just get past the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, the rest of your argument would just fall into place. I'm struggling to understand how you can say that while being clearly aware that that fallacy is not all that's wrong with your proof. Per my longstanding request, please provide -- for each fatal flaw -- some indication of how you plan address each.

Quote:

Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite...

There is no such thing as "potential selves" in materialism. You invented that concept and tried to paste it onto materialism solely to provide the Big Denominator you admitted you realized your proof would need before you even started. It's a very transparent effort at post-justifying a line of reasoning you already concluded you would need to make seem true in order for your proof to work. You aren't interested in knowing whether your proof is valid or not, but instead only in whether you can make it seem superficially plausible.

Quote:

...or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?

There is no such thing as "potential selves," and the entire concept is fraught with philosophical absurdities. You have addressed them only by begging the question that selves must have magical soul-like qualities that make them somehow different than all other "potential" existences.

Dave has been abundantly and copiously clear in his assertion that your Big Denominator formulation for the probability of existence has absolutely nothing to do with whether something actually exists or whether it was probable for it to have come into existence. He has provided numerous examples to illustrate that assertion. You shouldn't need to keep asking him this question. His position is clear.

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?

Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?

Under H, consciousness is the result of brain processes, and "potential selves" don't exist. They only need to be taken into account when assessing the likelihood of your current existence under your preferred hypothesis, under which "selves" exist independently of bodies.

__________________"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?

I think that if Jabba has failed to establish that his argument doesn't involve the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, then he's probably pretty sure that he was trying to fail.

__________________"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky

Dave,
- Per usual, one step at a time.
- Are you suggesting that the number of potential selves should not be infinite, or that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator, or both?

Jabba, even if you could argue that the number of potential selves was infinite (which is really ridiculous), it would not help you. Imagine a lottery with an infinite number of tickets (could be numbers, there is an infinite number of them), and you draw one: You would get a winner. Even if you draw from an infinite number of possibilities, there will still be a winner.

Hans

__________________If you love life, you must accept the traces it leaves.

I think that if Jabba has failed to establish that his argument doesn't involve the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, then he's probably pretty sure that he was trying to fail.

He could just be trying to sweep it under a Shroud. The pattern is to focus obsessively on "one thing at a time" as an excuse to dismiss the big bag of fail, until that one thing becomes too onerous to defend. Then magically the subject changes without explanation.

No, because history has shown that this just leads you to wallowing in irrelevant minutia such that you never confront the major problems in your proof all at once. You were given a list of fatal flaws in your proof. You acknowledged its existence but did not address it. Instead, you said that if you could just get past the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, the rest of your argument would just fall into place. I'm struggling to understand how you can say that while being clearly aware that that fallacy is not all that's wrong with your proof. Per my longstanding request, please provide -- for each fatal flaw -- some indication of how you plan address each.

There is no such thing as "potential selves" in materialism. You invented that concept and tried to paste it onto materialism solely to provide the Big Denominator you admitted you realized your proof would need before you even started. It's a very transparent effort at post-justifying a line of reasoning you already concluded you would need to make seem true in order for your proof to work. You aren't interested in knowing whether your proof is valid or not, but instead only in whether you can make it seem superficially plausible.

There is no such thing as "potential selves," and the entire concept is fraught with philosophical absurdities. You have addressed them only by begging the question that selves must have magical soul-like qualities that make them somehow different than all other "potential" existences.

Dave has been abundantly and copiously clear in his assertion that your Big Denominator formulation for the probability of existence has absolutely nothing to do with whether something actually exists or whether it was probable for it to have come into existence. He has provided numerous examples to illustrate that assertion. You shouldn't need to keep asking him this question. His position is clear.

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?

My estimate would be at least 90% that he was aiming for that failure, but with a 99% likelihood that he was aiming for A failure.

But it's so unlikely, there's surely an infinite pool of potential failures.

__________________The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell
Zooterkin is correct Darat
Nerd! Hokulele
Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232

I'm saying, as I've said several times before, that the number of potential selves should not be the denominator.

Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

No, because history has shown that this just leads you to wallowing in irrelevant minutia such that you never confront the major problems in your proof all at once. You were given a list of fatal flaws in your proof. You acknowledged its existence but did not address it. Instead, you said that if you could just get past the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, the rest of your argument would just fall into place. I'm struggling to understand how you can say that while being clearly aware that that fallacy is not all that's wrong with your proof. Per my longstanding request, please provide -- for each fatal flaw -- some indication of how you plan address each.

There is no such thing as "potential selves" in materialism. You invented that concept and tried to paste it onto materialism solely to provide the Big Denominator you admitted you realized your proof would need before you even started. It's a very transparent effort at post-justifying a line of reasoning you already concluded you would need to make seem true in order for your proof to work. You aren't interested in knowing whether your proof is valid or not, but instead only in whether you can make it seem superficially plausible.

There is no such thing as "potential selves," and the entire concept is fraught with philosophical absurdities. You have addressed them only by begging the question that selves must have magical soul-like qualities that make them somehow different than all other "potential" existences.

Dave has been abundantly and copiously clear in his assertion that your Big Denominator formulation for the probability of existence has absolutely nothing to do with whether something actually exists or whether it was probable for it to have come into existence. He has provided numerous examples to illustrate that assertion. You shouldn't need to keep asking him this question. His position is clear.

Despite your oft-stated desire to remain with one subject until it is exhausted, you seem to have drifted away from your attempt to explain how your argument does not commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And you seem to have done so without explaining in your own words what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is and why it's a fallacy. If your plan is to stick with a subject until it is concluded, then it seems fair to infer from your abandonment of that subject that you deem it concluded. And if it has indeed concluded without you rejoining your critics' rebuttals, we would have to infer further that it has concluded with you conceding that you cannot solve the problem. Is that a fair assessment?

Originally Posted by jond

Jabba, please address this post.

Jond,
- If you select one issue from the above, I will do my best to answer it.

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?

No, it is yet another statement of your claim. We are heartily sick of hearing you invent endless ways to restate your claim.

__________________Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive?

Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?

Not in the slightest. Human selves aren't drawn from a pool. Like other animals, humans engage in sexual reproduction. A new human comes from a combination of a male and female parent.

Jabba, even if you could argue that the number of potential selves was infinite (which is really ridiculous), it would not help you. Imagine a lottery with an infinite number of tickets (could be numbers, there is an infinite number of them), and you draw one: You would get a winner. Even if you draw from an infinite number of possibilities, there will still be a winner.

Hans

Hans,
- But again, 1) Dave does accept an infinity of potential selves. And 2) I accept that I need to be, somehow, set apart from the rest of the infinity of potential winners. Setting myself apart from the rest of you guys is my key task at the moment.

__________________"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski
"Most good ideas don't work." Jabba
"Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor

Dave,
- Yeah. We discussed this before -- but, I can't remember your answer to the following issue.
- The likelihood that your ticket would be the one ticket randomly drawn from a pool of a million tickets is one over one million. If we could have a lottery with an infinity of tickets, and drew 7 billion tickets, the likelihood of randomly drawing your ticket would be 7 billion over infinity. Doesn't that represent our brain experiment here?

As has been explained to you before, your existence is not analogous to a lottery. This is your persistent error, not Dave's.

__________________"Oh god...What have you done, zooterkin? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!" - Cleon